History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c15.s2.t12.11

c15.s2.t12.11

genius of Bhavabhūti has received its full meed of appreciation from Sanskrit authors. Rājaśekhara calls him “an incarnation of Vālmīki” in his *Bāla-Rāmāyaṇa*¹ and some critics even declare that Bhavabhūti excels Kālidāsa in the *Uttararāmacarita*.² The other literary luminary of Yaśovarman’s court was Vappaīrāya or Vākpati, described in the *Bappabhaṭṭacarita* as “the head-jewel of the Kṣatriyas and born of the Paramāra clan.” He appears to have enjoyed royal favour to a greater extent than his senior Bhavabhūti. Vākpati calls himself the king’s “paṇayi lavo” (literally a particle of a favourite friend), and claims that he was at the head of the poets (Kaī-rāya i.e., Kavirāja).³ He wrote in Prakrit, and according to the Jain legends he was at first in the service of the king of Gauḍa at Lakṣamaṇāvatī, and thence passed to the court of the victorious Yaśovarman. It is alleged that in the latter part of his life he became a convert to Jainism, and after undergoing severe penances in Mathura voluntarily starved himself to death (*anaśana*) in accordance with the Jain rule for men desirous of making a good end. Before writing the *Gauḍavaho* Vākpati composed a poem entitled *Mahu-Maha-Viyaya* (Madhu-Matha-Vijaya). He considered it to be his best work;⁴ but its text has not been discovered, and nothing can be said of it except that it probably dealt with the death of the demon Madhu at the hands of Viṣṇu. At present Vākpati’s only extant work is the *Gauḍavaho* comprising 1209 couplets, which, as conjectured by Dr. Keith, was probably “left unfinished owing to Yaśovarman's death;” or it may be a “series of excerpts dealing with those topics which the Pandits liked, omitting tedious historical details.”¹